Reagan's tender take on love & sex

NY Daily News ^ | September 22, 2003

[kegler4]

"Prior to 1930 I have not been able to find a single article by any Christian defending contraception on Biblical grounds."

So what you are actually saying is that you can find no church authority figure or biblical expert defending it -- not that every Christian out there thought as you think now?

Let me ask you about a real-life siutation and how you would handle it under your beliefs. This is a true story, not a strawman I'm throwing up.

My mother had me and then my brother 11 months later. Two months after that she was pregnant again. This time she miscarried and was extremely ill but recovered. Essentially, she could conceive quite easily but her body couldn't take the strain of having babies that fast. Her doctor told her that in his opinion, she would certainly miscarry again if she got pregnant again right away and she could possibly die. He then told her about condoms, which neither she nor my father knew anything about. I assume they used them and then four years later decided to have anohter baby, which was healthy.

Under your beliefs it sounds like my parents should have either stopped having intercourse or they should have taken the chance of another dead baby or leaving two children motherless (thank goodness they didn't opt for this course). Is this correct?

As an aside, my mother grew up as one of 10 children in a very close and loving family. The siblings are all still very close. But I learned later on from her that -- after watching the strains that size family put on her parents -- there was no way she wanted a family that big.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Still, Pope Alexander VII used the words "pleasure only", not just "pleasure" or "primarily pleasure" in condemning the proposition. You seem to be creeping slightly beyond where he spoke, although I personally understand what you mean.

[wideawake]

So what you are actually saying is that you can find no church authority figure or biblical expert defending it -- not that every Christian out there thought as you think now?

No.

What I am saying is that I have never found the slightest shred of evidence suggesting that any Christian of any kind before 1930 thought there was an argument in favor of contraception based on Scripture.

Moreover, I see no evidence that any Christian prior to 1800 ever considered contraception to be defensible on any grounds, let alone Scriptural ones.

Under your beliefs it sounds like my parents should have either stopped having intercourse or they should have taken the chance of another dead baby or leaving two children motherless (thank goodness they didn't opt for this course). Is this correct?

No it is not.

Since your mother's health was a concern, while abstinence was certainly a valid option, another valid option would have been to take advantage of a woman's natural periods of infertility.

[wideawake]

You seem to be creeping slightly beyond where he spoke

Perhaps. But I am creeping there in the company of his current successor.

[SupplySider]

...while abstinence was certainly a valid option...

It's too bad abstinence is widely held to be not only not an option, but a virtual impossibility and even a disorder. Tom Wolfe humorously described the current popular model, derived from Freud and other psychologists, as a high pressure steam engine that will explode if the safety valve is not opened regularly. Unfortunately I think most people these days have internalized that very, very limited view of life and sexuality.

[Sloth]

All sexual intercourse should (1) take place in the context of a true marriage and (2) maintain its potential for procreation at all times.

It's a sin to operate ceiling fans 1.) on Tuesdays, or 2.) in the presence of a Turk.

[wideawake]

It's a sin to operate ceiling fans 1.) on Tuesdays, or 2.) in the presence of a Turk.

Thank you for taking time out from your reveries of wisdom to enlighten us with your devastating, devastating wit.

Belial, you are absolved.

[wideawake]

Excellent point.

It fits in with the general attitude of our culture that instantaneous self-gratification is the highest law.

Fasting, for example, is an almost unthinkable practice nowadays.

And it has its more mundane effects as well: witness our average savings rates (not that the current interest rate environment was any help either - or are low rates yet another aspect of the general problem?).